Renovation
by The Official Girl Wonder
Summary: "We need to redecorate the Batcave!" Dick Grayson has a spontaneously stupid idea. Tim and Cass help. Someone will win, someone will lose, and someone will die...Okay, not really. Just read the fic.


**A/N: Totally random silly stuff…It's my first fic, so be nice. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Dick, Tim, Cass, Jason, Babs, Bruce, Alfred, the Batcave, the Batmobile, or anything else bat-related. I really, really wish I owned the Batcave though…**

Renovation

Dick Grayson crept stealthily through the manor, which isn't a difficult task for a bat. The twenty-three year old had come for a reason. It was an unbelievably idiotic reason, but a reason nonetheless.

He crept into the kitchen to find Timothy Drake, who was in charge of Wayne Manor while Alfred visited his friend in England and Bruce attended a conference in Japan, working diligently on some kind of paperwork.

Dick leaned on the door frame behind his surrogate little brother and asked, "What'cha doin'?"

Without looking up, Tim replied, "Homework."

"Okay…Are you still doing homework?"

"Yes, it's only been five seconds."

Suddenly unable to contain his excitement, Dick exclaimed, "Take a break and help me with something!"

Now, Tim turned to face the young man. "Why?"

"'Cuz I want you to! Now come on!"

"Dick, this report is worth half of my science mid-term grade."

"I don't care!" Dick was exasperated now, and practically begged, "Come ooonn, Timmy. It'll be fun."

"Dick?"

"Yeah?"

"You're whining like a seven-year old again."

"Grr…Yeah? Well…You're spending an unhealthy amount of time doing homework."

"What is it you wanted my help with exactly?" Now Tim felt exasperated.

"Oh…Let's just say it involves mischief, ingenuity, and stupidity all at once," Dick stated with a devilish smile.

"You mean like everything you do?" Tim deadpanned.

If it was possible, Dick brightened even more. "Exactly! So are you in?"

Tim gave a long sigh, and finally said, "I don't see the point in refusing since you're just going to stay in here and harass me until I give in."

"You know me so well. Come! We have work to do!" Dick said as he basked in triumph.

With one longing glance back to his essay, Tim muttered, "What am I getting myself into?"

* * *

><p>"Okay, I thought you were crazy before, but now I'm making it my business to see that you get help from Arkham's best therapists."<p>

"You're just jealous because you didn't think of this first. Now hand me the yellow paint," Dick said, ignoring yet another of the teenager's claims that he needed psychological aid. Since the boys had gotten down to the Batcave, Tim had kept trying to stop Dick from digging both of their graves. So far, it wasn't working, but Tim persisted in trying to get himself out of the situation. "You realize he's going to kill us right?"

"Batman doesn't kill," Dick promptly replied. He really didn't see what was wrong with his idea…

"Batman doesn't kill," Tim repeated. Dick thought he'd won until the boy added, "but Bruce Wayne might. What on Earth possessed you to consider doing this anyway?"

Dick stopped what he was doing and faced his young companion. He then flipped into a handstand and adopted a pensive countenance.

"Well, if you must know, I woke up early this morning to watch the sunrise. When I saw it, I thought, 'Man, I feel sorry for Bruce. He's probably too busy to watch the sunrise and he's always holed up in the cave.' That's when I decided to redecorate the Batcave!" He said, beaming as though he'd just uttered the most profound statement in history rather than the most suicidal idea in history.

Tim just stared at his brother, trying to determine whether Dick was serious. After a few seconds, Tim reached the conclusion that sadly, the man in front of him was indeed serious. Attempting to hold on to the last strand of sanity between them, Tim weakly stated, "…It's the Batcave…It's supposed to look like this…"

"Says who? Batman? Well, he's not here. He's in Japan for that conference remember?"

Finally, Tim accepted defeat and let sanity fly out the window. (Oh wait, there aren't any windows in the Batcave…You guys know what I mean!) "I still think we're going to die, but…Can I decorate the computer?"

"Yes! See, this is why we need to hang out more. I'm a good influence."

* * *

><p>Tim looked away from the gargantuan computer and toward Dick for a moment. The teenager asked, "What color are you making the Batmobile?"<p>

"Blue and purple…What color are you painting the Batcomputer?"

"What else? Red, green, and yellow."

Dick sniffed and wiped a tear away from his eyes, choking out, "I'm so touched…"

"Calm down," Tim said, abruptly steering away from the fuzzy mood. "I'm not doing it to honor you. They're my colors too."

Dick was still sniffling and coughing, but this time in sadness, saying, "Aw, Tim, couldn't you have just said it to make me feel better? I've been having a lot of low self-esteem issues lately, and this just makes it worse." Dick suddenly stopped his crying, stood, and started pacing passionately. "To think that you, of all people, would insult me, your predecessor, your mentor, your **brother **for crying out loud, in such an undignified manner!"

Thankfully Tim was saved from having to listen to Dick rant any longer by a voice at the top of the stairs. "Tim, what going on? Reason Dick whine like seven years old?"

Tim, relieved to have someone sane around, turned from Cassandra Cain, back to Dick Grayson and said, "See, I'm not the only one who thinks so!" Before Dick could counter, he turned back to Cassandra. "Don't worry, Cass. Dick's just being his usual overly emotional self."

"I'm not overly emotional! I'm just a sensitive person." This day was really not going how Dick had wanted it to.

"Dick?"

He turned to Tim, hoping the next statement would be an apology, and asked, "Yeah?"

"Seven-year olds are sensitive."

"Shut up." Dick replied, emotional moment over.

Cass then asked the obvious question. "Why colors in Batcave?"

Dick was suddenly back to being emotional. "We're decorating it, though a certain current Boy Wonder refuses to respect his elders. Cass, tell Tim he hurt my feelings!"

"Cass, tell Dick he's being a baby!"

Cass, being a girl of few words, quickly summed up what was on her mind. "Both idiots, but me help?"

The boys exchanged a glance, and Tim turned back to Cass. "Uh…sure…"

* * *

><p>Dick, feeling much better now, turned to his two younger friends. "What are you guys doing over there?"<p>

Tim called back, "We're painting a mural of the entire Batclan."

Dick, intrigued, walked over to look. After a few seconds, he turned to the two raven-haired teenagers. "You know Jason will murder you when he sees how dorky you made his Robin costume look, right?"

Tim looked at the design in question, turned back to his brother, and said, "That's not Jason. That's you, Short Pants."

Dick looked baffled, as if this were the most unbelievable thing in the world, and managed to say, "…B-but…My costume wasn't dorky…It was retro.

"Retro means old, bro," Tim promptly informed.

Amused, Cass decided to contribute to Dick's torment, chanting, "Old Short Pants."

Dick could not believe the two of them would just turn on him like this. To resort to making fun of his costume…It was unbearable. "I'm only a little older than you two!"

At that moment, the display on the computer changed to the face of Barbara Gordon a.k.a. Oracle. She quickly surveyed the scene, and greeted them. "Hey, guys. Why are your communicators off? When I couldn't reach you earlier, I sent Cass to investigate, but then she didn't answer. I take it you're busy doing something down there, huh?"

Cass took the liberty of explaining the situation in her own concise way. "Painting Batcave. Dick act like baby." Yep, that pretty much covered it.

Babs blinked a couple of times, and said, "Err…I'll ask about the painting thing later. Dicky, what's wrong?"

Dick seemed to be in some sort of catatonic state. He tried explaining, but found his cool, calm, and collected façade failing him.

"Kids…mean…colors…mural…short pants…" He uttered the last phrase in a voice that could only be described as terrified.

Babs shook her head, having seen Dick act like this too many times already. "Kids, why did you break Dick?"

Tim shrugged and said what he thought should've been obvious: "It's fun."

* * *

><p>"I'm home," Bruce called arriving at Wayne Manor an hour before Alfred. He felt fairly certain that Tim was responsible enough to housesit, but if Dick had come to visit…<p>

"Hey, Bruce!" Of course, Dick Grayson chose that exact moment to stride into the corridor.

"Dick? I thought you were in Blüdhaven." Bruce tried to make it seem as though he was pleasantly surprised to see his eldest son, but he was really just stalling in order to figure out exactly what kind of havoc the younger man had wreaked on his home.

"Well, I was, but I had an epiphany this morning."

"What kind of epiphany?" Bruce asked tentatively, remembering when Dick was fourteen and had an epiphany that led to the destruction of half of the living room. Whatever made the boy think that he could use peanut butter to contain a combustion reaction? Unfortunately, Dick hadn't changed all that much over the years in terms of not thinking things all the way through.

_Oh, great. He must be remembering the peanut butter thing. _Dick acted fast.

"I just decided to get Tim and Cass to help me with a project. It's nothing to worry about, though. Trust me."

"I can't trust you when you have that look on your face."

"What look?"

"The 'I-just-did-something-stupid' look." Bruce turned to see Tim and Cass walking toward them. He turned to the more talkative of the teenagers.

"Tim, what happened?"

"I plead the fifth."

"Cassandra?"

"Dick crazy idea. Tim help. Tim insult Dick. Dick whiny seven-year old. Me see them be idiots. Me help with project. Tim paint mural with me help. Dick think we paint Jason, but we paint Dick. Dorky costume. Dick feelings hurt. Babs call, ask why we break Dick. Tim say, 'It fun.' We paint more. You come home."

Everyone was silent for a moment, partly because they weren't use to hearing Cass say so much at one time, partly because they were trying to decipher the poorly constructed sentences, and partly (in the boys' case) because they were trying to think of an excuse.

Bruce finally broke the silence. "Wait, where were you three painting?"

"Hold on, Bruce. Aren't you going to reprimand them for hurting my feelings?"

"You're not a baby, Dick. Deal with it," Bruce replied.

Tim and Cass snickered while Dick grumbled something about not being able to trust his family.

"Now, where were you painting?"

The room's three younger occupants suddenly blanched.

* * *

><p>Inevitably, the terrible trio spent the evening repainting the Batcave in its rightfully depressing shades of gray, black, and…more black. Bruce was helping of course. He very helpfully pointed out the spots they'd missed and let them stretch their legs by asking them to get him snacks from the kitchen. They were only halfway done when a scream echoed through the cave, disturbing the bats.<p>

Everyone turned to see sixteen-year old Timothy Drake, looking for all the world as if…as if the world had just _ended_. No, better yet, he looked as though the world had just ended and all of his backup plans had failed because let's face it: We all know that Tim has 2,743 different backup plans for the end of the world. One of them involves dematerializing himself and storing his memory on a floppy disk for the aliens to find, but that's another story.

"What's wrong, Tim?" Dick asked tentatively.

Tim turned towards Dick's voice and pronounced his next statement with a passionate hatred rivaled only by the heat of a thousand suns.

"**You** made me forget about my mid-term essay!"

Silence

"Well, look on the bright side…" Now everyone turned to Dick, wondering what sort of "bright side" he had conjured up.

"Now, you'll have a C or something. Don't you get tired of A's sometimes?"

More Silence

Tim Drake is a very intelligent individual, so he knows when his brother's idiotic statements have an underlying meaning. Right now, he was not happy about that underlying meaning.

"You meant to keep me from finishing! This whole pointless 'Let's paint the Batcave' idea had a purpose after all! Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?"

"I like messing with you. I quote, 'It's fun.' End quote."

Yes, it was another ordinary day in the Batfamily minus the crime fighting. Tim spent the rest of his evening attempting to murder Dick. Dick couldn't stop laughing. Cass refused to keep repainting the cave without the boys' help, so Bruce decided to let Alfred take care of it when he came home. Speaking of whom…

"My goodness! Master Richard! Master Timothy! Stop running in the house! Why do you boys smell of paint?"

**The End (Evil Laugh)**

**Review or face my mercenary assassins. (Even More Evil Laughter)**


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